Morals...

It took an extra cold shower, a long one, just to make sure it shriveled up to its normal state. After the shower I went back to our room, shivering from the cold. In the room I passed Ella, still smiling naughty to me. I squinted my eyes in Kylie-fashion, but with a faint smile on my lips. She smiled back, smug, like she wasn’t impressed at all with my unspoken threat to avenge her practical joke.

I sat down cross-legged, took a blanket or two and warmed myself, huddled in them.

“You should be more impressed with his threat, Ella...” Kylie said out loud, having perfectly understood our nonverbal communication. “I might even be inclined to balance the scales a bit... Perhaps... later.”

“Alex can handle it just fine, Kylie. If anything his mood improved considerably. He seemed so stressed this morning. As you both were this morning.” Kara interjected.

“After teasing me endlessly last evening...”

“I didn’t tease you. I just wanted to understand. I can’t help it if you want to read that book for a thousand times. At least you know already how it ends. I had no clue what the several cell structures were all about.”

“Sure, Kylie... But remember, Alex isn’t the only one with the smarts to strike back at the most inconvenient time...”

“Hmm... true.”

“Alex, let me huddle with you. You look so uncomfortable...Fuck, you’re so cold...”

“And you are so warm, Kara, as a beautiful morning star upon a fresh summer day.”

“How romantic... But whatever you are planning, know that I can... take it...”

“If it wasn’t clear to me, Emma, it is certainly clear to me now... Which will come... in... very handy.”

“Do you hear that, Kylie, perfectly able to strike back on his own...”

“Where’s Sophia by the way, my dearest girlfriends?”

“Check up on Clara, she said.”

“What’s up with Clara?”

“She wouldn’t tell, but I would assume the stress of being locked up here is getting to her.”

“Hmm... How is the weather outside?”

“Unsure, even precarious at times.” Kara replied.

“Hmm... We need more diversion in times like these. Otherwise we are waiting endlessly on good weather reports. Increasing our stress even more. I know Mina is reading her entire library, Ambra is still working to improve her private lounge, now extending her creative decorations to the small corridor, but I can’t be sure about Emma and Clara. The last time I tried to check, a candle was lit.”

“Clara is quite stressed. Emma helps her to get through it.”

“I didn’t know Emma was...”

“She isn’t, but she likes to help, she likes to serve in any way she can.”

“And getting quite good at it... Emma helped me a few times out when I was frustrated at the time our oblivious commander didn’t notice my true strength.”

“But... what is she getting out of it?”

“Kate, you like submissive fantasies, but Emma is submissive in her real nature. It pleases her immensely if she feels to be used. I talked to her about it, she gets off on it.” Kylie replied.

“She does?” I asked.

“She may be seem reserved to people, but she really, really likes to serve. Perhaps you think she is a normal, shy woman, but she discovered it a long time ago in herself. When she feels being used, she barely has to rub herself out to get off.” Kylie added.

“And did she agree you would tell us all of this?”

“Oh, yes... The more people know of her subservient character, she said it herself, the more opportunities to feel like that. But only to people she trusts. And luckily there isn’t anyone in here she doesn’t trust.”

“Hmm... Still it would feel wrong for me to just...”

“And she knows that too, but she has feelings for you. You are a natural leader, we have seen it during the war more than a few times. She recognized that the moment she first saw you. Even when you were frowning so hard, those days. It pleased her to finally have met someone like you. For her, the strength, leadership, able to decide fast and act upon it, giving commands without being an asshole, it’s a godsent in more than one way.” Kylie finished.

“She feels she can serve you by taking care of the others, and at the same time when she can feel being used at times by the others, she can come very quickly.” Ella added.

“They happy, she happy?”

“Exactly... And you happy, she happy... Literally even... she does not like you being stressed. She feels bad for you, being here, locked up, unable to do something. The problem is that she will never ask for anything from you. It’s simply not in her nature, and she would only want to do something with you when she feels you need it. Knowing you are very hesitant to take the first step...”

“So basically, what you are telling me, Ella, we are two magnets with the same charge...”

“Yes, unless you order her, in a way she feels you need her.”

“She can’t have had many happy relationships...”

“She hadn’t. Unfortunately. Men used her when they didn’t need it. Men didn’t use her, afraid to hurt her. Men used her, felt so powerful they became assholes to her. She won’t get off on men asking her to sweep a clean floor... I mean that literally and figuratively. She left them in the end, searching for a better man, that wouldn’t be corrupted by the power they felt over her. It took her quite some time to feel at peace with herself.” Ella looked a bit sad.

“Is she, now?”

“More or less, yes... Can’t say for sure, though, just like me, she wants to keep her emotions to herself.”

“Power corrupts... Luckily I have all you here to keep me in check.”

“Yes, Alex, you have us. But you are way too empathic with people to become an asshole in the first place.”

“Possibly. Knowing this all, now, I already feel sorry for her, and I can’t go to her, because that is not a good reason to start anything with her, even if I wanted. She would simply refuse it on the basis I don’t need her.”

“Indeed... But when I teased you just there, leaving you standing... up. In that case you could have called Emma, saying you need it back down urgently, and she would have done it, no questions asked. But you wouldn’t do that in the first place. Not with your morals...”

“My morals? They prevent me from being an asshole in the first place. Otherwise I could have hurt a lot of people back in my days.”

“I’m sure you had a lot of those days... Don’t squint your eyes like me, Alex, you will never master it like I couldn’t master your glare... But yes, your morals you have placed in yourself, rationally, logically, those are good ones. But the other morals are now obsolete. In this upside down world, with our agreement to share one man, and you having a few girlfriends at the same time, you didn’t place beforehand into your mind. What you however do follow are the old morals, the type of relationships you want for yourself.”

“I don’t understand, Kylie. It’s highly unconventional for me to be in this circle of women, but I have accepted it, I think.”

“Yes, you are coming nicely along. But for some reason, you always follow typical rules, unlike a lot of men I have encountered. In order for you to have sex, you must be in a relation, or at least, a relation must follow. Don’t mind me, I won’t complain.”

“Nor will I...” Kate interrupted, dreamingly.

“Nor will Kate. Nor will the rest of us. But you have to realize, that you only start a relation when you fall in love for some reason. When you feel a special connection with each of us.”

“I do, yes... Not sure what is so bad about that...”

“It isn’t bad, Alex, but you don’t allow people into our inner circle, just because they haven’t followed your order of things to happen. Which frustrated me beyond anything I have ever felt. At times it was hurtful the way you tried to evade me, to not look at me, to not react at all. I understood of course, but having you make the first step... It crushed me.”

“Oh... Emma... I had no idea...”

“You were oblivious at times, and at other times you didn’t want to react for reasons like infidelity, knowing full well, all of us, would be happy if you finally gave some attention to the others. For example with Emma. You must realize this will not end good for her, right?”

“No, it will not. But can’t they just move on? Like I have done in my life?”

“You forget that was then. This is now. People moved on by evading their crushes, focus on others, having other crushes, took on other hobbies, more work, went to parties, drank ****, had sex with others, or simply forbade themselves to ever fall in love again. Not that they were all good solutions, but solutions nonetheless.”

“And this is now...” I sighed deeply.

For a man perhaps, it will be a lot easier to fall in love, there are plenty of women. But for a woman in these times? Where we survive because of each other and have to become or stay like a clan. There are almost no other hobbies anymore besides extra work to survive more easily. Parties? ****? In these times, where a moment of not being vigilant enough, can cost you your life? The endless stress with it... And knowing your crush is just a few meters away, but without having other solutions.

“I am crushing them...” I sighed deeply, again...

“And I was strong, Alex, but in the end I couldn’t keep myself anymore from doing the one thing I told myself not to do. Emma is strong too, in her own way, setting the limits herself in her past life, but with only you around, and you being so fitting to her match... I understand you would want to wait with Ambra, you did very well telling her about the tree with few leaves. I certainly understand you don’t want anything to do with minors. But I have the feeling you are crushing Clara and Emma, yes.”

“Yes, you are...” Sophia entered. Looking very sad. “Alex, I just came back from Clara, she is a mess. She lost her self-confidence completely. Evading once again to look at her this morning, was the last drop for her. She is... really, really a mess. I couldn’t console her anymore. You have to know this about her, Alex: she looks like innocence herself, but she is also very innocent. I know, she and I gave the wrong impression that day in the cave, but she only went along because she thought it was the only solution. She is not good with men. Her inexperience with them, her perception of you, having more than one girlfriend, she thinks she cannot offer you anything. Being here, doing nothing, gives her no opportunities to start a decent conversation.”

“But I thought she was so self-confident! The way she fought back at you the night I crashed your party, self-confident in showing herself...”

“Alex, that was then... Now, after a long month, having her life turned around, you trying to correct the problems. Alex, you should know, all her life she has been waiting for the white knight. Then you suddenly appeared as an unknown knight in the forests, she was already making preconceptions about you being the white knight preparing himself to rescue her... And then... you did. And more... You stood up for her, avenging her by raiding the house of village monster. And then again, by saving Ambra... She has never fallen in love before, never had sex before, she wanted to stay a true virgin for her white knight in shining armor. And now she has fallen in love with you and sees her inexperience is another hurdle. The morals of you being a knight were first very attractive, but she couldn’t see the implications beyond that. Until it was too late.”

“The hell it is!”